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Civil Unions don't upset most religious people.
Now here's a place where I could be totally wrong
Unfortunately, I have to think mwest is a little optimistic on this point (my previous, blanket agreement with his post notwithstanding). My experience is that most evangelical Christians are opposed to Civil Unions on the basis that it is just a matter of semantics and the feeling is that it is a "deception" of the "other side" to try and force its agenda through on a technicality. While I understand this perspective, like mwest I feel that a distinction between governmental Civil Unions and religious Marriages would be useful and not just a matter of semantics. I don't think it's right that a gay couple should not receive benifits because they made a choice. The choice, I believe, is an unhealthy one, but that doesn't need to be augmented by the state.
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I would be pleased if we just gave "marriage", whatever that is, back to churches and dealt with legal issues of partnerships strictly on a civil (union) basis. That's just Jim the atheist talking.
Well, Jim the athiest, Jeff the Christian would agree with you. I think the churches concept of marriage has already been harmed by secular notions of marriage anyway. I've argued for this before with the idea that we've not correctly identified the problem (we want to make sure primary care-givers are supported financially, there are reasonable legal associates between people who are close, etc.) so we end up using marriage as a catch-all institution that doesn't quite work when extended to the secular world we live in. But I doubt we'd ever be able to rid ourselves of the concept of "legal marriage".
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-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.